Thyrocare

Posted by Saurabh


Idea
Thyrocare is a diagnostics laboratory that specialises in testing for lifestyle diseases such as thyroid malfunction at cut-rate prices.
Thyrocare, founded 12 years ago by A Velumani, 50, conducts about 30 lakh tests a year, which doctors say is a sign that lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, obesity and depression, are on the rise. These conditions all create imbalances in the hormones produced by the gland, which in turn controls how quickly the body burns energy and makes proteins.


Business In order to offer a cut-rate service, Thyrocare focuses entirely on testing, and outsources the job of collecting samples to franchisees. So it has one central laboratory in Navi Mumbai, where all the tests are conducted, while 600-odd centres all over the country collect samples from patients and have them sent to this lab.
Thyrocare provides these centres with branding support, medical literature and the all-important vials for collecting samples. The franchisees are then responsible for recruiting people to collect samples and delivering them to the nearest airport.
Outsourcing the collection and some tests that it does not perform, helps the company keep costs down because it does not have to maintain a huge team or buy equipment for tests that do not come its way very often.
This single-minded focus on costs is visible everywhere. The building's facades are made of glass so that natural light can illuminate the inside, and the company can save on electricity. The company uses the bulk of cash it generates to buy equipment and service it. It now has ten imported machines, two of which cost Rs 1.2 crore each.


Obstacles Conducting so many tests has its downside. Of 1.24 lakh tests Thyrocare conducts every month, it gets about 400 to 600 complaints about reports from doctors and hospitals, the company's largest clients. That might sound a lot, but as a proportion of the total, it is actually just half a per cent. But given the kind of prices it charges, it is perhaps a wonder that it has managed to keep the problems to this level.


Success Today, the lab employs 150 people and plans to diversify, including into pregnancy testing. It has also designed a health check-up package and is approaching companies to sign on. Mumbai was a pretty daunting place to start off, says Velumani, but a Thyrocare story is possible only in this city.

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Rajdhani

Posted by Saurabh


Idea
Kamlesh Barot’s Rajdhani, an unlimited Gujrati cuisine restaurant is one of the most ubiquitous names in Mumbai. There are now 18 Gujarati thali restaurants and snacklets, or snack outlets, across Mumbai, run by the Barot family. They have 20 more outlets in other parts of India, and one in Dubai. It was also the first air-conditioned thali restaurant in Mumbai to serve unlimited authentic Gujarati cuisine.

Business
Mr. Barot changed menu items daily, to focus on nutrition, see colour combinations and the cuts of vegetables and approach menus scientifically. Little wonder then, that in the days when a thali cost Rs 5, Rajdhani rid you of Rs 15. It was a price many were willing to pay to savour an exceptional variety of food in a presentable setting.
The Barot family has used JJ School of Art students to create ethnic interiors, coming up with a cyclical menu showcasing seasonal vegetable dishes, introducing Maharashtrian and Rajasthani items, and in 2001, ushering in the concept of the silver utsav thali, which became extremely popular among celebrities and industrialists, such as Shabana Azmi, Parvez Damania, and Anil and Nita Ambani, whose names the restaurant began inscribing on the plates.
They also introduced Rajdhani "snacklets", which are self-service outlets offering items from Rajdhani's thali. Goenka's finances and sharp business acumen coupled with Barot's professional expertise and dynamic vision has seen the chain expand rapidly.

Innovations
Maintaining consistency in food and service in 40 outlets sounds daunting, but Rajdhani has a well-oiled system, overseen from the chain's head office in Lower Parel. Every month, a detailed menu is emailed to all chefs and they all meet on the 25th of every month to ask the head chef questions before the menu is rolled out. Most chefs are hired from Rajasthan, who Barot thinks, are adept in handling both Rajasthani and Gujrati cuisine. From the 1,750 employees under Encore at least 60 to 70 per cent are have been nurtured and trained within Rajdhani. Apart from the corporate office's quality control team that regularly visits all outlets, Rajdhani's customers, too, serve as watchdogs. "We are perhaps the only restaurant to have a large sign welcoming guests into the kitchen," said Barot. "This enhances customer service and forces chefs to be hygiene and maintain decorum."
Success
Within two years of its makeover, the modest 1,000-square-feet restaurant thriving in the congested chaos of Crawford Market was listed in the Lonely Planet, a rare achievement for a local Mumbai eatery serving purely regional cuisine. After hours of treacherous navigation through crowded market streets, foreigners sought Rajdhani out to revive their parched throats with the signature-smoked chhaas, strongly recommended by their indispensable city guide.
Today, Rajdhani serves its trademark thalis in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Nagpur, Baroda, Jaipur and Dubai, the last of which is soon set to become its most profitable outlet.

Future
Barot dismissed talk of competition without arrogance. "There are a dozen one-off Gujarati thali joints, but no one comes close to us in terms of numbers, staffing, turnover, seating capacity and brand recall." He admitted though that the chain's expansion was threatened by the influx of fast-food eateries such as McDonalds and pizzerias. To overcome this challenge, Barot simply knocked off the idea of ordering from a menu. "The moment a guest enters, we start serving," he explained. "You can finish your meal in 20 minutes. We became faster than fast food." They were thus able to capture professionals who preferred nutritious homely food to junk.

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Raj Travels

Posted by Saurabh


Idea
Lalit Sheth had a simple strategy to break into the travel business: construct premium tours and don't be afraid to charge for them. He charged almost double the going market rate. He never believed in snatching business from others. But, he did not want to be run-of-the mill even.

Business

Sheth's business had humble beginnings. He started with a table in a shared office in Masjid Bunder, in south Mumbai, and Rs 2,200 to his name. But after the first tour, his customer base grew via word-of-mouth and regular small newspaper advertisements.
In 1979, he organised his first overseas tour to the Far East after studying the mountains of brochures he asked tourist offices of various countries of that region to send him. Until 1985, he ran the business without borrowing money, but that year, he applied for a bank loan to open new branches, the first one at Ahmedabad. Since then, he has kept borrowing to expand. The second branch opened in Chennai and the third in Srinagar.
In 1984, he moved out of a shared office and into the diamond merchants' hub because most of his clients were based there.
To counteract the industry's high staff attrition rates, he offers generous incentives. Senior staff can earn more than Rs 2 lakh a month, while sales agents can get Rs 500 for each passenger they book onto a tour. Most get to travel for free as they also double up as tour guides.
InnovationsIn 1981, his company pioneered the idea of sending Indian chefs to Europe. Now it has got them stationed at all the hotels it uses there. Although these chefs originally served Gujarati cuisine, now they dish up anything from Jain vegetarian to south Indian fare to Thai curries.

Success

Six thousand customers travel on Sheth's coaches each day, bringing in a annual turnover of Rs 52 crore. Nearly 100 per cent of their visas were successfully processed, Sheth said, because their name was respected, and they did not sell to people who looked dubious. The company boasts 60 per cent repeat customers and is, according to Sheth, the largest package tour operator in India focusing on overseas trips.

Obstacles

Margins are becoming thinner while advertising costs are ballooning. "Year-on-year we have been growing at 45 per cent, but this year already there has been a slowdown, so we have put a more conservative estimate of 25 per cent," Sheth admitted. "This is because people have less money to spend."

Future

Now he is looking at a major expansion. Convinced that travel by road is the future in India, he plans to increase his fleet of Raj National Express coaches to 10,000 and to become the first in India to offer wi-fi and live TV.A new 44,000-square-feet office is coming up in Ahmedabad in two years and a 24/7 call centre will open up within days, just yards away from his office, and will employ 150 staff.
The trick, he said, was to have one's finger in many pies and offer a buffet, including corporate incentive trips.

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Meru Taxi

Posted by Saurabh


Idea

Neeraj Gupta’s Meru Taxi supports about one thousand taxi drivers and a customer base of 30,000 passengers across the city, and they are glad he came up the idea for a 24x7 call-taxi service in January 2007.

Business

In July 2006, six months before he started up, the state government had announced it would grant licences to anyone who wanted to operate private taxi fleets. His timing was perfect. Gupta set about creating his business plan. The 300 per cent growth of Gupta's four-year-old private fleet service V Links - from one bus to 13,000 vehicles - was testament to the fact Gupta was no Johnny-come-lately.
He sat with Accenture’s executives for six months and even convinced private equity firm India Value Fund to invest Rs 10 crore in the venture. He even sourced a state-of-the-art mobile communication device system - a mapping device to track the exact location of the taxi - from Australia at Rs 10 crore for 1,600 vehicles.
Drivers traded their black-and-yellow taxi for an air-conditioned Maruti Esteem, wore a smart ochre and chocolate brown uniform and doubled their incomes.

Success
Mr Gupta's blueprint ensures that the entire service works with clockwork precision. A call on the helpline sets off a flashing red dot on a digital map stored in the call centre executive's computer. That helps him or her locate the caller's location and the number of engaged and free drivers in the vicinity.
The executive then sends a message with the caller's address to the closest free vehicle through the communication system. The address flashes across a digital screen inside the vehicle.
He invested in GPS (global positioning system) and MCD (mobile communication device) because you will never be able to grow beyond a fleet of 200 without the right technology."
It's this eye for detail that is evident in Gupta's choice of drivers as well. Each of the 1,000 drivers has been picked after three rounds of scrutiny - a personal interview, a psychometric test and a five-day training programme at the Meru Academy, the small training division.

Future
Mr. Gupta displays a similar perfectionism when chalking out his expansion plans. With his fleet of 500 having made a statement across Mumbai, Gupta is in the process of expanding to a fleet of 400 in Hyderabad, 250 in Delhi and 350 in Bangalore. Mr. Gupta also has a team that is in charge of thoroughly researching the potential market in Chennai, Ahmedabad and Pune, with the aim of permeating every major metro by March 2009.

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